Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Hand Quilting

Have you ever done it? I just got this book from my mom. It's a gorgeous book and has some great quilts in it. Just about every single one of them is hand quilted. I'm finding myself drawn to it! It looks so good! The book has tips on thread to use etc. I've heard people say it takes so long.

I'm wondering if I should give hand quilting a try. My favorite part of the whole quilting process is sitting on the couch and hand sewing the binding to the back of the quilt. I'm one of those people that like to sit and do stuff w/ my hands. I like to knit and crochet for the same reason. I love the TV. I'm pretty much addicted to it. So I find that if I'm knitting, crocheting or doing the binding while watching the TV, it's not so bad that I sit in front of it for hours!

It seems that most of my quilts are always gifts for people so I'm always rushed to get them done by a deadline. But I'm thinking that maybe one day I'll actually make a quilt for myself and possibly hand quilt it.I love the look of them. I did try browsing around Flickr to find some great photos of some hand quilting that I like but wasn't too successful at finding anything to post. At one point I saw someone's blog that had an absolutely gorgeous hand quilted quilt that they did; and now I can't find it! I think I saw it on a blog during the Sew Mama Sews May give-away month. I should have saved the link b/c it was amazing!

5 comments:

I tried to hand quilt once but it's an imperfect thing and I hate imperfect things. The hoop shifts the layers, I couldn't do the whole "rocking the needle" thing and it took forever to do one stitch at a time...all that really tuned me off.

But I like the look and I like the idea of watching tv and stitching away like the old days...so I might try it again on a small (really small) quilt. It would be fun to trace designs in the fabric like this quilt:

i say, give hand quilting a try. but i also say, do it for projects that stay within your family, like for yourself or a sister or your kids. because it takes THAT MUCH more time. and probably most people just wont appreciate it. but i say, definitely do it. i have only hand quilted one quilt, it was a huge quilt and to be honest i still haven't finished it, more than 10 years later, but to be fair its no longer in my possession. so, go for it! start small, like on a baby quilt and do a simple design, like quilt around the outline of some stars.

good luck and post your progress!!

ps you could get a mini quilt frame like a baby quilt frame, theyre not that expensive and if you have the room, you can just leave the thing up with the quilt in it and it makes a kind of nice display and then you wont have the hoop problems like the first commenter put.

I only hand quilt. I do it because I love doing hand work. True it does take a long time, but I think it's worth it. I like to think of every stitch as a piece of love, and a little bit of my heart.

I wouldn't put the effort into items that others won't appreciate. That said, some of the quilts have gone to people who do not value the work. The only way to deal with that is completely release the work when you give it away (e.g. from your heart). It's up to them what they do with it.

Would HIGHLY recommend hand quilting on smaller projects, to start with. For example, cushion covers, table runners, etc. Baby panels are also a good choice.

I'm a stay at home mother of 2 beautiful girls. I'm also a Navy wife. I enjoy spending time with my family and seeing and doing all that we can in each location we move to. Quilting is my obsession I just wish I had more time to do it!